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I was thinking about accepting an offer from a V15 that hires mostly law review/top 10% people. They are known to be selective about grades, but I somehow got an offer even though I am in the middle of the pack at a T14 school. I happen to know that the other people who got offers from my school are on law review or have excellent grades.

Is it a bad idea to accept this offer? Am I just going to look like an idiot working with all these incredibly smart people?

You made the cut. Obviously, you possess some traits that they are really looking for that go beyond grades and law review (especially in light of the fact that law school grading is so subjective). There is relatively very long-term difference b/w someone who finishes in the top 10% vs. the top 25%.

chadwick218 wrote:You made the cut. Obviously, you possess some traits that they are really looking for that go beyond grades and law review (especially in light of the fact that law school grading is so subjective). There is relatively very long-term difference b/w someone who finishes in the top 10% vs. the top 25%.

Why are you giving this person such terrible advice?? doesn't this person know that everywhere they go for the rest of their lives, they will need to have their lsat score, ugpa, & law school gpa on their name plate?

My advice is get your DNA coded, and have that along with all of the above information laminated onto a plastic card and wear it with a laniard until you make partner.

For people who want biglaw, the #1 advantage of good grades is that it helps you in the 2L SA job hunt. Your grades were good enough to get you through here. From now on it'll all be based on your job performance and how much the partners like you. The thing is, job performance doesn't correlate to grades that strongly, so you're likely just as capable of proving yourself as everyone else there, and if they didn't think so they wouldn't have given you an offer. If this is where you want to work, go work there and show them why they should hire you. Given how firms are hiring lean right now and giving high offer rates at the end of the summer, you should be fine.

I am in basically the exact same situation. Perhaps we're talking about the same firm? If this is the case, then that firm may just put a premium on personality, work experience, or some other "X Factor." I wouldn't sweat it, though - I accepted my offer last week.

My CS told me that average GPA for offers for many firms is lower than the GPA average of the same firm's pre-selects and even callbacks. Basically, GPA only gets you an audience. You made the cut, feel good about it!

The boost in exit options and stability almost certainly outweigh the marginal decrease in the probability of making partner (which is incredibly low even at "target" firms). That said, make sure you like the place. Don't go simply because it's more "prestigious."

chadwick218 wrote:You made the cut. Obviously, you possess some traits that they are really looking for that go beyond grades and law review (especially in light of the fact that law school grading is so subjective). There is relatively very long-term difference b/w someone who finishes in the top 10% vs. the top 25%.

Why are you giving this person such terrible advice?? doesn't this person know that everywhere they go for the rest of their lives, they will need to have their lsat score, ugpa, & law school gpa on their name plate?

My advice is get your DNA coded, and have that along with all of the above information laminated onto a plastic card and wear it with a laniard until you make partner.

I may have mistyped ... I meant to say that there is very little long-term difference b/w someone finishing in the top 10% and the top 25%.

Came from same situation. Got more interviews than I deserved grade-wise and shouldn't have gotten offers based upon my grades but did. To make things worse, I came from a lower T2. Granted, I'm just a 1st year associate, but I was loved during my SA and was from the lowest ranked school, and many people from my school with better grades did not even get a single offer.

Once I got to the firm, I killed it. Not bragging, but stating a fact. Grades don't mean anything at all. Personality, efficiency and thinking on your toes is not tested 1L: these are the things that matter.

Anonymous User wrote:I was thinking about accepting an offer from a V15 that hires mostly law review/top 10% people. They are known to be selective about grades, but I somehow got an offer even though I am in the middle of the pack at a T14 school. I happen to know that the other people who got offers from my school are on law review or have excellent grades.

Is it a bad idea to accept this offer? Am I just going to look like an idiot working with all these incredibly smart people?

Your Question, re-phrased: "Should I be a pussy and not take advantage of an incredible opportunity that others would kill for, simply because I am an insecure little beeotch?"

chadwick218 wrote:You made the cut. Obviously, you possess some traits that they are really looking for that go beyond grades and law review (especially in light of the fact that law school grading is so subjective). There is relatively very long-term difference b/w someone who finishes in the top 10% vs. the top 25%.

Do not really think LS grading is subjective. It is, at times, hard to know what a particular professor wants. Also, it may be true that LS grading is not a good predictor of how good one will be at being a lawyer (the distinction relevant to this OP), but that does not make it subjective.

My summer experience was this: Statistically I was probably in range for my firm, but on the lower end. I'm probably around top quarter at a T14. Were there a lot of people who I felt were smarter than me? Yes. Was it a concern? Not often, but it was something that occurred to me when I was constantly wowed by the other summers in my class. It might be insecurity, but I'm really generally a cocky bastard, so I don't think that's it. I wasn't the "dumbest", but knew that I was clearly very, very far from the smartest. It did occasionally occur to me that in the long term, being at a place where you're statistically (or really) the top dog, even if it's not as "prestigious" (whatever that means) a place has some value. I think it's also reflected in the phenomenon of folks lateralling to a lower ranked firm in their later years for a chance at partner.

You can say that grades don't reflect intelligence, but with a big enough sample size, I'm willing to bet that if you take a large group of top 1/3rd people and a group of middle 1/3rd people, on average the top folks are going to accomplish relevant tasks more proficiently. That doesn't mean that some given person with better grades is "smarter" than any other given person with worse grades, but in the aggregate, I think it's stupid to make the argument that grades are totally meaningless.

That isn't to say I wouldn't recommend that the OP go this "reach" firm, especially if it's one that the OP likes, beyond the fact of its selectivity. More selective firms tend to have better exit options, which alone could make it worth it (not that this is the only factor to consider by any means).

The point of my post isn't to say that grades are the most important thing, but to say that it does have meaning. Most 1Ls know the stakes and work their asses off. Some 1Ls successfully pulled off better grades than other 1Ls, and that's reflective of something. I know that grades are part "smarts", part hard work, part luck, part supplements (especially for the supplement crazy TLS crowd)... but it isn't a meaningless measure. I agree that things like personality, street smarts, luck and even (shocker) looks, will also have a significant impact on your law firm career. But again, take a big enough group of high grade people, and a big enough group of low grade people, and on average, I'm betting on the high grade people.